Just because a student graduates from high school doesn’t mean he is proficient in math or reading. As we’ve noted in the past, many students are graduating from high school thinking they’re all set for college, only to find that their schools just pushed them through, inflating their grades even if they didn’t know the material.
But that isn’t just the case for those students struggling on the lower end of proficiency. Now it appears that such grade inflation is extending even to our best and brightest, otherwise known as Advanced Placement (AP) students.
Top scores on AP Exams have soared just in the last few years, a recent article from Ira Stoll in Education Next reports. Whereas 40% of students scored a 4 or 5—the highest scores possible—in AP English Literature in 2024, less than 20% scored the same just three years before. AP U.S. History and U.S. Government also saw a roughly twofold increase in top scores in the same timeframe.
The reason for such dramatic jumps is that AP is “’recalibrating’ the test scores to match the reality of the grading in the college courses for which the ‘Advanced Placement’ tests can sometimes earn students credit,” Stoll writes, going on to note:
“Some analysts are cheering because it means these students can use the AP scores for college credit and get a college diploma faster and for less money. But if the point is actually learning skills and content rather than shuffling students toward the next meaningless credential that signals no actual achievement or ability, the development is troubling.”
Unfortunately, this is not the first sign of students struggling to keep up with college work. As we’ve mentioned previously, an article from Forbes shows that the need for freshman remedial education in colleges exploded in the 2019-2020 school year, as evidenced in the chart below:
Why this mass dumbing down? Why is it that our students could handle college-level course work once upon a time, but now they struggle, needing catch-up courses and adjusted grades in order to meet the mark?
Sadly, one need only look at our local school districts to get an answer. Consider the following 5-year trends in 10th-grade reading proficiency from various districts around the Twin Cities.
In the northern suburbs we have Anoka-Hennepin, which saw reading proficiency drop from 65% in 2019 to 51% in 2023:
In the eastern suburbs we have Stillwater, which saw reading proficiency drop from 73% in 2019 to 57% in 2023:
Burnsville represents the southern suburbs; it dropped from a reading proficiency rate of 53% in 2019 to 38% in 2023:
And finally, even the western suburbs, which sport some of the top school districts such as Minnetonka, have similar issues, dropping from a reading proficiency of 80% in 2019 to 72% in 2023:
These drops can’t just be blamed on COVID and its disruptions either, for the years preceding 2019 saw the trend already heading in a downward direction.
No, the reality of what these charts from across the Twin Cities metro area are saying is that Minnesota schools are not adequately preparing the next generation to work, serve, or lead our communities in the coming years.
We can see this in an analysis OAK did of the class of 2023, comparing its overall graduation rate to the cohort’s reading and math proficiency assessments in preceding years.
As you can see below, the class of 2023 had an 83% graduation rate. But in 2021, the same class saw only 58% of its students proficient in reading. In 2022, only 37% were proficient in math. Do you really think the class of 2023 was ready?
Rather than turn a blind eye to this situation, covering it up with grade inflation and other sleight of hand tricks, we should be doing something to get these students into schools that will actually give them a chance, teaching them the essentials of reading, math, science, and history.
Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) are one of those options, providing parents with $7,000 per student (already allocated by the state) to use toward the school of their choice. With ESAs, students who want a rigorous education—one that challenges and prepares them for the future—can take their $7,000 to a school that will actually provide that challenge.
That sounds like a far better solution than just upping a “B” grade to an “A” or graduating thousands of students who are not proficient in reading or math.
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